Saturday, October 31, 2009

I accomplished something I don't think very many students have. I used a word in a paper which my extremely well-educated and well-read polisci professor had never heard before. Liminal, which means transitional. Even Firefox doesn't recognize liminal as a word (it's underlined in red), but it is a word!

It might be why I got an A- on my paper. *does happy dance*

I am a B+ student (many at St. Olaf are. super annoying). So an A- is a good thing. Professors consider A- and B+ to be the same grade and give B+ to show they're fighting grade inflation. But they are not the same thing! There is a .4 grade point difference between a B+ and an A-. And when one is shooting for a 3.75 GPA (which would be cool, but I'm a B+ student, so it's not going to happen), a 3.3 is devastating versus a 3.7.

I also improved my grade in Anthropology. On the first exam, I got a C. Suck. On the second, I got a B! Maybe on this next one, I'll get an A! Probably a B+. He's not the most GPA friendly prof.

On a related note, I have 4 papers due on Monday. I have finished one of them (it doesn't need to be well written, thank goodness), and have outlined and written 2 sections of another (the prof for that class is a notoriously easy grader). I think I can get it done, even though I have 20 hours this weekend set aside for preparing for, having, and recovering from our party on Halloween.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

I got a new phone today! It's nothing too fancy. No Blackberry or iphone. It has a 2.0 megapixel camera, which is nicer than my old phone. It has a removable micro sd card, which is really nice and I will take advantage of this feature. It plays mp3s a feature I will never use. It flips both directions, so I get a qwerty keyboard for texting, which I didn't think I'd like, but it's a lot easier on my fingernails. My only concern is that it is a lot bigger than my other phone, which barely fit in my pockets sometimes. I guess this is an excuse (as if I needed one) to buy more mens jeans.

And the best/worst part: I pay my own bill now! Yay! I don't really enjoy paying bills but I like being in control of my finances. I guess one could call me controlling about certain issues. Or if not controlling, at least someone who wants to know what is going on and has some say about what's happening when. I'm kind of a power whore that way.

In any case, back to phones. I'm retiring my perfectly good phone, who today got the name Ol Reliable. It's always just been named My Phone. It reminds me of the bloodhound in Lady and the Tramp. His grandfather was named Ol' Reliable. He was apparently full of memorable anecdotes. I kind of want to get a bloodhound and a scotty just to name them Jock and Trusty. (Cute, Ol' Reliable and Trusty.... aww... I wonder if they wore Depends when they got old?) I like naming pets after characters. My cats were Rajah (Aladdin) and Kovu (Lion King 2). Disney has too many good hound names. Napoleon and Lafayette from the Aristocats, Copper from The Fox and the Hound (although I will NEVER name my fox Todd, should I ever get one. Todd..... Weinhold? Too weird...)

In any case, back to phones (what a sudden tangent!). Ol' Reliable still works perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with it. I'll just keep it for a couple years before I donate it in case New Phone breaks or something. So far, works fine. Mom keeps texting me, because she has a lot of units on her prepaid to use up before November so she can upgrade her prepaid phone to a newer prepaid phone.

Yup, that's the news from Catey on Fall Break. Bored? Me too... Actually not really, I have a lot of homework to do, and a DS to distract me.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

So, I guess I'm bored. I've been sitting in Avant Garden since 11:30ish. I've still got another hour and a half til my mom comes to get me at 4:30. I've caught up on ANTM and Glee. I've harvested and planted everything on farmville. I don't have any more email to write. I could look into finding art or posters to hang in our apartment, but I've already started this post and it'd be a little silly to stop now.

Ergo, post number 2 of the day.

I had a very up-and-down past yesterday.Up: I got a ride to school so I didn't have to walk in the rain.Down: My backpack was thoroughly stuffed, so it was atrocious even though I walked a mile less than normal.Up: We had an interesting discussion about bodies in anthropology.Down: I felt really disenfranchised that while we talked about male, female and intersex biological sexes, we talked only about men and women as genders in the context of St. Olaf. There are trans students on campus, me included, and he knew it.Up: Russian politics was interesting and engaging.Down: No one recognized my suggestion in Asian Politics as valid, and discounted it before I had even finished. It was too valid.Up: I got my N64 games in the mail!Down: I got a cold.... possibly swine flu, but so far it's just a runny nose and sore throat and a stuffy head.Up: Work was easy and drama-free.Down: I was working while sick.Up: I got to leave work for 20 minutes to go present to the Student Organizations Committee so we can get SANRA recognized as a student org.Down: They ran out of meatloaf AND mashed potatoes before I got to eat. Although the turkey was good.Up: I played pokemon snap for a few hours because I had no homework.

Yeah, that was pretty much it for yesterday. Today, aside from the cold weather and my cold and lack of sleep, it's been a pretty good day.

I had an eye check up today. It was nice. My doctor is really friendly, and she has a daughter who goes to St. Olaf, is in my class, live off campus, and we are both Soc/Anthro majors. We have never met. Or even seen each other. I haven't even heard of her spoken of. Small campus, my ass.

In any case, my eyesight has changed. My right eye got worse. It is now -10.25 with -3.0 correction for astigmatism. My left eye, on the other hand, improved (oooohhh.....). It is now -8.0 with -2.5 correction for astigmatism. (This is glasses, btw, not contacts. I don't know if there's a difference, but if there is, I'll specify)

So now I need new glasses! I wonder what style I should get.... Bold? Charmingly tacky? Obscure? Square frames? Round frames? Thick frames? Bright color? (no, actually. no bright colors). They must be big enough for the nose pads to be able to fit comfortably this time, instead of having my right nose pad dig into my tender flesh. The lens is too thick for it to bend farther even though I really like these frames aesthetically.

My eyes are almost back to normal. My pupils don't get drastically large when dilated, but everything looks annoying and warped, so I figure they're back to normal because only up-close words piss me off. As I was waiting for the bus to take me to Anoka, a cop with their lights on screamed by. And by screamed, I mean both aurally and visually. It hurt....

In other news, I have a cold. : ( So fall break will consist of sleeping and drinking tea. Oh, darn... :p

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Last Sunday was National Coming Out Day. At St. Olaf, where nothing but homework or movies happens on Sundays, we celebrated Coming Out Week. Coming Out Day was created to celebrate everyone's identity, and encourage people to be out (as GLBT or an Ally or whatever they felt like) to let others know who may not have the courage to be out, that there are other GLBT people or people who support them in their community.

Anyway, we had a lot of events happening all week because of NCOD. Monday, we had a theologian from St. Paul come and speak with us about the intersection of faith and sexuality, and how coming out is an holy act. It was a good talk, if one needed faith-based support, or if one were a Christian ally. I was a little lost and apathetic.

Tuesday, the QLBT women on campus were invited to have dinner with Ellis, a singer/songwriter gay alumna. Oddly enough, we had tacos (vegan and gluten free, as Ellis has dietary resrictions). Get it, the lesbians eating tacos? haha. Anyway, Ellis is one of my favorite people in the world. She's so funny, and down to earth, and full of great ideas and quotes. For example, her cell phone beeped a few times from her coat pocket in the next room. "That's just my cell phone. There's not a submarine trying to get in the house or anything. If y'all were worried about that." *insert awesome laugh*After that, she played a concert. It was really good. She's so talented and funny. She's a folk artist who writes her own songs. She performed one she wrote when she was feeling sad one day, and decided it's not really her most of the time, so she's going to try to sell it to someone less stable.

Thursday we had a fun community time celebration. Community time is an hour (or an hour and a half if you don't go to chapel) on Thursdays where nothing is scheduled. No classes, no mandatory meetings (or they're not supposed to be, anyway!), etc. So we made a rainbow balloon arch, 120 cupcakes, and put on some loud gay music in Crossroads. If you took your picture under the rainbow arch, you got a cupcake! It was a fun hour and a half. The table near ours was a boy scout selling popcorn. I felt a little bad for him, so he got the last cupcake. It was also Fall Preview Day aka Prospie Day, a day when all the prospective students of St. Olaf come and see what it's like here with their parents. We had about a dozen prospies take their picture under the rainbow arch too. And the Regents were on campus today too, so all tenured profs had to dress up in full regalia for a ceremony and everything. The Regents don't really support GLBT issues, so I'm glad we could come out in full force that day.Later that evening, we had one of the first year students give a workshop of queer people of color. He was recently a speaker at the March for Equality in DC, and even gave a speech. That's pretty cool, especially for someone so young. His workshop was a little speedy, and didn't really go in depth as much as I would have liked, I guess. But he has been active in California high schools, not Minnesota colleges. He isn't really sure how much we know or what we have here. For example, he doesn't seem to know that GSAs are nation-wide, not just in California.

Friday, we had a party called the GLOW Underground at the Asian House. We used the Asian House (1) because it's on it's own in the woods far away from everything and (2) we don't have the GLOW house this year. : ( It was called the GLOW Underground because (1) There was a DJ in the basement and (2) it implies that there will be drinking. Which there was.

It was a fun week. : D

Oh, and I got an A on my Women's Studies paper. But I got a B- on my Asian Politics paper...

Life is busy, yet goin' fine. Tomorrow at 8, I will go up to campus and blow up balloons for a balloon arch, and set up other fun stuff for the community time party from 11-12:35. After clean up, I get to have a lunch break til 2, when I have another meeting. From 3-5 I have office hours at the GSC. At 5 I am meeting with my group for my Asian Politics presentation. At 6 I am attending a Queer People of Color workshop.After that I am free to finish up details on my presentation and work on my paper proposal with annotated bibliography that's due Sunday night. It's an early night for me! I will get home before 9!

5) I've lost 1 pants size since coming back to school. I mean, I'm not obsessive over my weight (I have actually gained pounds since coming back, according to the doc's scale), but I like being healthy, and since I've lost inches but not weight, I'm taking that as a sign of being healthy.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

If you have noted the absence of these "daily" posts, I'm sorry. I get very busy, and every minute of potential sleep at night is precious. I suppose I could update from the school computers. I'll try it sometime.

I have been busy, but next week is the Week of Complete Crap. It is Coming Out Week, which means I'll be busy baking and blowing up balloons and decorating hallways and attending events and cooking dinner and tabling and doing all the little things that together equal about 35 hours of unpaid labor in 2 weeks just for Coming Out Week. So far I've put in about 5 hours just for tabling. Tomorrow I spend a couple hours buying stuff, and Sunday I spend a couple hours decorating the hallway. Plus about 5 hours spent planning events prior to this.

Monday I work in the morning, have 4 classes, will spend a couple hours making buttons, then we have our first event, which is a dinner lecture on faith and sexuality by a local theologian.

Tuesday I work in the morning and the afternoon, with tabling for 2 hours, then I go to cook dinner for a QLBT women and females potluck with Ellis that night, then go to make sure Ellis has everything she needs for her concert that night at 8. At some point, we'll also be baking about 200 cupcakes.

Wednesday, I have 4 classes, then an hour later I work for 3 hours. After work I will frost the cupcakes and blow up balloons for a couple hours

Thursday morning I am putting together a balloon arch, which includes finishing blowing up balloons, and getting other stuff ready for the Community Time Celebration, then having the Community Time Celebration and cleaning up after. I have GSC office hours for 2 hours, then tabling for 2 hours after that, then a GSC meeting.

And Friday, I have 4 classes, with 1 paper due, 1 take home exam with 4 short essays and a group project presentation. I also have a research paper proposal due the next Sunday, complete with annotated bibliography. Then we're having a party for Coming Out Week.

In addition, I also have a full reading load every day except Friday, when I only have to read 2 long chapters and 6 short chapters.

And Brigit and I are meeting with the new advisor for our new club.

I would put in a well-deserved (imo) "FML" but I think I'll have fun. I might just ask for an extension on my Russian Politics paper. That'd make it a lot less stressful!

Saturday, October 3, 2009

You know how sometimes when someone says a word that can be considered dirty and you giggle?

I wonder if French people giggle at Americans because we say "Dur..." (duh).

Dur = hard in French.

I would giggle if I overheard a tourist say "Uh.. hard!"

On another note: French doesn't have a word for 'gender' the way we use it here. They just use sex for both the social and biological aspects of gender/sex. It's very limiting for non-heteronormative people. But I suppose if a need arises for a new definition, it will be created. Like gender was in English.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Tonight was the Political Awareness Committee's Fall Speaker. This year, the speaker was Karl Rove. Oooh! Controversial figure! They reserved the Skoglund Gymnatorium for the Fine Arts so they could get enough seating for everyone. (Side note: Skoglund is just a gym, but it fits the most people of anywhere on campus, so it's used frequently for music events, hence the nickname).

I was expecting the event of the year. I guess it was pretty remarkable. Hundreds of students waited in line outside Skoglund in the rain for a good seat. I think several hundred probably didn't come because of the rain. This behavior is typical of Oles. It must be a remarkable event for people to (1) walk down to Skoglund for an event and (2) walk and stand in the rain for it.

As I was huddled under a nice music major's umbrella and we were slowly trudging to the entrance, I saw a figure in red and white run toward the building, something smoking in hand.

"Oh god," I thought, "Now they're just going to cancel the event. Some stupid kids gotta play terrorist for Karl Rove."

Surprisingly, they just threw the smoke bomb back outside, and kept letting people in.

I got in, took my seat next to KT, and prepared for the fun. Then there was a disturbance behind us. The same red and white figure was now laying on the ground, blood coming from his mouth, not moving. The security guard just started at him, and beckoned some EMTs over. Then they all stood staring at him. Then an officer picked him to his feet and marched him outside. I think he was trying to protest the violence that has come about as a result of Karl Rove's influence, but I think he was a little high so it didn't really come out the way I think he intended. The blood was fake, by the way. Some people, including me, applauded him as he was marched out. KT glowered at me. I think it takes a lot of guts to do something like that, especially at St. Olaf where Minnesota Nice is not only encouraged but institutionalized. I frown on the smoke bomb, but exhibiting your message in a non-verbal form is a unique gift that not many people can pull off, including Reed.

Anyway, Karl Rove eventually started speaking. He spent a long time talking about being Norwegian and Lutheran. The beginning of the speech was directed at the stereotypical St. Olaf students, being as we're a Lutheran and Norwegian school. I don't think he realizes that many of us are not Lutheran or Norwegian. Anyway, then he got into his talking points about healthcare. There was much recitation of the Republican standpoint on health care. It wasn't really anything we don't hear every day now that health care is the biggest issue in politics right now.

It wasn't until the Q&A portion that things got really interesting. (I mean, the health care debate is interesting, but not when only one side is presented and it's a side that's been repeated hundreds of times in the media and town hall debates). Questions were written on note cards, collected by SGA volunteers and then selected by lottery, moderated and read by PAC people. There were questions asking him to defend his role in the war on Iraq, his election tactics, etc.

There was a lot of question evading and more talking points being recited. A lot of facts cited that we've all heard before that don't represent the whole of the issue. The best moment of the night, however, was when someone asked about whether or not another Reagan figure would come to the Republican party, and someone shouted behind us "It's the Second Coming of Reagan!" Pretty sure we laughed at that for over a minute. : )

By the experience, I am satisfied. By the talk itself, not so much. I guess I was expecting new and innovative ideas to be addressed in his speech, but it wasn't anything really challenging.